


Solicitude

by morifiinwe



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Angst, Death Foreshadowing, F/M, Family Angst, Prophecy, post-birth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-25
Updated: 2019-03-25
Packaged: 2019-12-07 15:47:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18236972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morifiinwe/pseuds/morifiinwe
Summary: We love our children, desperately, endlessly.





	Solicitude

**Author's Note:**

> beta read by the wonderful elvntari

**_solicitude (noun)_ **

__ _ care or concern for someone or something _

 

i.

It had been a long, hard, and worrying day. Finwë had vacated the stool he had been sat on, and was leaning back against the pillows on the bed. The room had been taken apart and put back together; remade with white and gold and pale blue to hide the red. Finwë was glad. He wanted to ignore the red, and where it had been. He was blessed and happy, and he didn’t need to think about all of that.

Míriel was leaning against his chest, halfway into a dream. Finwë ran his hands through her silk silver hair and tried to ignore that she was colder than usual. She needed to rest. That was all. She shifted further up his chest, careful the not disturb the sleeping bundle in his other arm. Moving slowly, she ran her hand gently over Fëanáro’s cheek.

“He’s so lovely,” she whispered.

Finwë smiled at that. Míriel had created many wonderful things, and given him many gifts that had all become prized possessions. This, though, he loved more than anything else. Fëanáro was perfect, absolutely perfect. With the both of them in his arms, Finwë could find a moment’s peace, a remedy for the fear staining the hours that had passed.

In truth, it had taken too long, and Míriel was too tired now, too quiet. Everyone told him that she would be well, she just had to rest, but Finwë saw the way they looked at each other. Perhaps they simply didn’t wish to worry their king. Míriel had always burned bright and steadily, but now she was cold. In Fëanáro, Finwë could see much of her and her fire. Too much, but he hardly dared dwell on that.

Míriel would be well, they all said, and Finwë would care for her all the way.

 

ii.

Míriel pressed herself closer and closer to her husband. For all that she was now resting, rest felt impossible. The cold she had felt at her son’s birth had sunk into her bones and she could not shake it. Finwë’s hand ran through her hair, and she sighed. Such gentle touches were tonic to her pain. With as much care as she could muster, she touched fingers to her son’s cheek.

Fëanáro, she had named him, Spirit of Fire. He would burn so bright, Míriel knew it. At the high point of the pain, she had seen him alight with a passion that did not end. Her knowledge was certain, but not complete, however. Míriel could not tell what would become of him in the end, only that it would be such an end, befitting such an elf. A doom settled over her mind. She would be close enough to see, but too far to touch.

“He’s so lovely.”

She could not bear to disturb him. Sweet dreams would not sustain either of them, and neither would endless wakefulness, but Míriel gave all her sweet dreams to him, as she had given everything else. Perhaps it had been too much, perhaps it was the only way. Whichever was true, Míriel knew with sinking certainty that Fëanáro would be her only child.

How much time did they even have together? Other mothers she knew said that the sight was like looking through a window into the future. Míriel had felt like she was looking through smoke and shadow into a dark and unfamiliar world. Everything she had seen was true, but she knew she would see it like that again; far away, with Finwë by her side.

**Author's Note:**

> please like and comment if you enjoyed!


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